Update this morning...
Biggun is having another rough day. The nurse let me know that this isn't unexpected and they are prepared for this, but it still troubles us to see little JD in distress.
His Oscillator settings had to be increased again and he's now on 48% oxygen. They can't physically hear for the murmur with him on this specific machine, so they have to do it based on the blood pressure. Right now his systolic and diastolic pressure has a huge gap. I didn't know much about this, so here's a brief explanation.
The systolic and diastolic pressures are used to determine the "maximum" and "minimum" flow. Systolic is the maximum flow of blood pressure as it travels through the body and the diastolic is the minimum pressure of blood. So when they look at his systolic pressure versus his diastolic, the gap between the two is large. Right now, it varies, but say for instance it was 48/19 - They would look at the gap between the two numbers and how large it is to determine whether he still has a murmur. Anything greater than 25 is what they look for on a murmur.
They were able to ween down on the dopamine, which is great. And his fluid intake looks good as well. The nurse also told me a fun fact - the oscillator machine was designed by a doctor who saw his dog panting and wondered how he was able to do that and not fall over. It was found that the sharp intake of breath repeatedly was beneficial to premature lung development and they use it to simulate the way a dog pants to promote lung health. I thought that was a cute fact.. So next time you look at your dog, know that they inspired a major advancement in medical science!
Right now, Biggun is expected to have ups and downs. Today is a down day, and his stats are looking pretty dismal. We are hopeful that he will bounce back, and they are going to do another round of Indocin to see if they can get that flap closed, but it's looking more and more like Biggun is going to have heart surgery to resolve the flap issue. Keep your fingers crossed and us in your prayers that it isn't necessary.
Thank you for the love and support. We were recently able to pay for our stay here for another two weeks because of the generosity of some people out there, and I cannot even begin to express how thankful we are to you for allowing us to do that. We are stronger because of the people who stand with us.
Please keep the prayers coming!
Much Love,
Rachel and Joshua
